A common problem in computing involves transforming data stored in one format into another format. Different systems may employ different data formats. For example, data may be organized into a table of rows and columns, where each row corresponds to an instance of a data object and each column corresponds to a respective attribute for the data object. Portions of data stored in one column according to one data format may be extracted and stored in another column in order to conform with another data format. Such extraction may be performed manually, with the user selecting each individual data element portion to be extracted.